WE’LL REGULATE FACEBOOK IF LEO WON’T, VOWS FF
Party pledges to force through law creating social media regulator
FIANNA FÁIL is ready to force through the creation of the social media regulator that Leo Varadkar has tried to shelve.
The party is preparing legislation to create the new watchdog – and is ready to join forces with other Opposition TDs to push the appointment through the Oireachtas.
FF Communications spokesman Timmy Dooley said his party’s Bill would give the new social media regulator ‘very substantial powers ... to regulate and police the industry’. There would also be ‘very significant financial penalties’.
The regulator’s office would be similar to the Office of the Digital Safety Commissioner that Denis Naughten had, in January, promised would be established this
year. But the Taoiseach is refusing to commit to it. Fianna Fáil will introduce its social media regulator Bill after the Dáil’s summer recess.
The establishment of such an office will be one of a number of issues discussed with the Government in the upcoming Budget negotiations to ensure the money is there to fund it, said Mr Dooley.
The Government’s target of an Office of the Digital Safety Commissioner for later this year was abandoned when ministers launched their coolly received Action Plan for Online Safety last week.
The Government said that setting up the office was more complex than expected and would require international cooperation.
But now Mr Dooley has said Fianna Fáil will push the plan ahead amid demands for such an office by child safety groups horrified by the revelations about Facebook on Channel 4’s Dispatches.
With a similar Bill to create a Digital Safety Commissioner having already been introduced by Sinn Féin – and the Labour Party and Social Democrats demanding such an office too – the Government is facing a surefire defeat in the Dáil on the issue.
Mr Dooley said that while Fianna Fáil supports the principles of Sinn Féin’s Bill to establish a Digital Safety Commissioner, the party does not believe it goes far enough as it does not outline the financial penalties needed to bring ‘those people to heel’.
Sinn Féin’s Bill is based on a Law Reform Commission recommendation but Mr Dooley said his party wants to strengthen the watchdog so it can hit firms with substantial financial penalties if they are found in breach of the independent watchdog’s rules.
He said: ‘We agree with the principles, but it doesn’t go far enough in terms of setting out fines and penalties.’
The Fianna Fáil Bill would establish the office of a social media regulator and give them ‘very substantial powers to develop a regulatory regime which is appropriate, and then to regulate and police the industry’.
‘And then to have available to them very significant financial penalties for failure to respect the independent rules that will be established by that office.’
Fianna Fáil is still working on its Bill but says these penalties would be a percentage of the social media company’s turnover.
This is similar to what the European Commission does when it sanctions companies. ‘They base it on percentage of turnover,’ Mr Dooley said.
Minimum limits will be set but these fines could have the potential to run into the ‘multiples of millions’.
The Sinn Féin Bill to establish a Digital Safety Commissioner passed the second of five stages in the Dáil earlier this year and is to go to committee stage after the summer recess.
Mr Dooley said if that Bill reaches committee stage before Fianna Fáil has the opportunity to introduce its own proposals to the House, Fianna Fáil would table amendments to the Sinn Féin proposal so the office had the power to impose ‘very significant fines and sanctions’.
‘So we will either introduce our own, or bring forward amendments to that [Sinn Féin] Bill.’
The pledge to force through a social media regulator comes after the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary showed Facebook moderators allowing videos of child assaults, bullying, animal cruelty and self-harm to remain on its site.
The Government has flipflopped on the establishment of a Digital Safety Commissioner here in recent months.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said last week he believed social media companies are mostly doing a good job of regulating their sites.
‘I think, in fairness to the big tech companies that are active online, any time I meet them, they are very in tune to this issue.’
On Wednesday, the Taoiseach described the Channel 4 documentary’s findings as ‘shocking and most unacceptable’. While he suggested the Government would examine whether ‘legislative mechanisms’ would allow a system of fines to be brought in, he stopped short of committing the Government to doing so or to recommencing the plan to create a Digital Safety Commissioner’s Office.
Seán Sherlock, Labour’s justice spokesman, yesterday reiterated his call to the Government to proceed with the appointment of a Digital Safety Commissioner.
He told RTÉ Radio: ‘This is something that [Mr Naughten] promised in January of this year.
‘They subsequently announced the Action Plan for Online Safety last week and he rowed back on that promise, and there is no mention to any great extent of a Digital Safety Commissioner.
‘I think he needs to take that on board now. I think we need to provide for the regulation of the online space now.’
Several figures from children’s charities and organisations also backed these calls, and Tanya Ward of the Children’s Rights Alliance said: ‘I think the Channel 4 programme proves the reason we need a Digital Safety Commissioner.’
Communications Minister Denis Naughten was due to meet Facebook chiefs in New York last night to discuss the scandal.
One source said last night: ‘Everyone wants him to put it up to Facebook, but that is just not going to happen.
‘They employ too many people and their growing presence in Ireland is just too important to want to be the man who puts that into doubt.
‘However, he is going to have to at least go through the motions and ask the odd difficult question. He is also going to have to seek assurances.’
After the Dispatches investigation, Mr Naughten said he is ‘deeply concerned’ about the revelations.
He said: ‘The programme… raises serious questions for the company in respect of the manner in which it handles reports of harmful or illegal content carried on its platform.’
Mr Naughten also said it raises questions about the way it moderates content. He said: ‘Clearly Facebook has failed to meet the standards the public rightly expects of it’.